Life in 1071.
by Alan Smithee
Summary: Chapter 1: Quistis finds a job teaching elsewhere. Will she be able to take the pressure of this new job?


Life in 1017  
  
  
  
"But why won't you reinstate me, Cid?" Quistis screamed at the Headmaster. "I've gotten enough new experience to be perfect to teach the students again…"  
  
"I'm sorry, Quistis, but you're too good in the field. We need you out there more than we do as an Instructor. Plus, we remember how you bombed out the first time…?" Cid explained.  
  
"But come on… you were sending a person as young as the students out there to teach them. What'd you expect was going to happen?" Quistis asked.  
  
"We do that for every class. Grow up; you're not more special than them." Cid replied.  
  
"Fine. If you won't let me do this, I'll just have to look somewhere else for this stuff…" Quistis said as she stormed out of the office.  
  
"Hmmm…let's see…I need to find a good teaching job somewhere…Where would they advertise those things?" Quistis thought a moment. "I've got it…" She went to her computer and headed for hotjobs.com. "Let's see…WWF staff writer…President of Galbadia…rock superstar…Ah, here it is…" Quistis pulled down the file.  
  
"WANTED  
  
Creative Writing Teacher, Winhill School District  
  
Experience Preferred, But Not Necessary  
  
WE ARE DESPERATE! We need qualified teachers!"  
  
"It's golden…" Quistis thought as she sent a resume in. Within a short period of time where not much actually happened (thus making it safe to gloss over it), Quistis received word that they wanted to hire her. Before she knew it, she was at the school.  
  
"Hello, I'm Quistis Trepe…I'm the new Creative Writing teacher…" Quistis said to the principal.  
  
"FINALLY! We needed someone new to take that class over," the principal exclaimed as he showed Quistis to her classroom. Inside, she saw a madhouse of various students basically going wild, with only a couple of students in the back writing. "This will be a challenge…" she thought as she clutched her whip.  
  
"Hello, students, my name is Quistis, and I'll be your new teacher…" she said as she walked around the room. "Now, can anyone tell me what you've been taught so far?"  
  
"Um, we usually don't get TAUGHT anything. Mostly, we just write whatever we want to write about. Then, we say all our friends' stories are really good so that they'll say that our stories are really good in return…" one of the students replied.  
  
"I see…well, it looks like you're in for a rude awakening. Writing is not just about how popular your work is with your little circle of friends. You must also try and study the craft and try and work at getting better at it. You can never be satisfied with how your work is; work can always get better. That's the skill with writing. Now, let's see what some of you wrote before…" Quistis said.  
  
"Okay…" one of the students replied. " MY KEWL FUNY STORY R/R: E POOPIED EN DE FLOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111 THAN E DED ID AGAN! E LUV POOPIEING EN DE FLOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111 TEE HEE!" The class all shouted their approval. "That was the funniest story ever!" "You're a god at humor, man!" "Keep doing more of that! Never change!" Quistis was appalled.  
  
"Okay, class, now, this is a perfect example of what NOT to do. First off, he didn't write a story…he only wrote a couple of sentences. Then, his spelling and grammar were atrocious. For Hyne's sake, he didn't even spell I right! What makes you think that's a great story?"  
  
"Well, come on. If we don't say it's funny, then when we write a humorous story, he won't say our stuff is funny," one of the students said.  
  
"Yeah, besides, teacher…" the student who wrote it replied, "All you need for a good humor story is poop! Once you have poop, you have humor!"  
  
"I see…well, I see that I'm going to have to have an assignment for all of you to do…" Quistis said as she headed to the blackboard. "Now, I'm sure all of you know that I was one of the SeeDs who fought the sorceress, right?" she asked.  
  
"Um…yeah…" one of the students in the back said.  
  
"Are you all aware of me and my friends?" Quistis asked. A scattering of agreement rose through the classroom.  
  
"Okay. Your assignment for the weekend is to write a story about me and my friends. Be creative. I only ask that you actually try to hone the story until it's something you'd be willing to read to the class…" she said as they ran out of the classroom. "Ah…." Quistis thought. "They may be idiots, but at least I'm teaching again. I love this job…"  
  
The next Monday, Quistis came back to class.  
  
"Good morning, class! I trust you've managed to do my assignment?" Quistis asked. A small show of hands came out. "Well, I hope all of you who didn't do it know, you're all going to lose credit for the assignment…"  
  
"But we aren't supposed to do it every time! We're supposed to write when the mood takes us, then read it and have people like it…" one of the students whose hand was down replied.  
  
"Nevertheless, in my classroom, you do it my way. Those of you who actually did the piece, let's hear your work…" The students put out the work. One student in the back tried to volunteer to go first, but while he started reading, the others shouted him down.  
  
"OKAY: MY FUNNY STORY R/R: MS. TREPE WALKED DOWN THE HALLWAY ONLY TO FIND RINOA POOPIEING ON THE FLOOR! THEN MS. TREPE DECIDED IT WAS FUN AND SHE POOPIED ON THE FLOOR TOO! THEN SQUALL, ZELL, IRVINE, SEIFER, AND SELPHIE CAME BY, AND THEY POOPIED ON THE FLOOR TOO! POOPIEING ON THE FLOOR IS FUNNY!" one student replied.  
  
"Yeah, woo!" "Poop is funny!" "You're the funniest person alive!" "You rule!" "Lol!" Quistis tried to teach some lessons on what was wrong with it, but she was shot down by more cheers for the story.  
  
"Okay…I've got a serious one…it's a love story… One day Ms.Trepe was walking down the hall and she just thought For some strange reason, I love Seifer now! so she ran and found seifer and they kissed and went to the closet to make babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me…" one girl replied.  
  
"Yeah!" "That was so sweet…" "It should have been Quistis/Squall but other than that it was great" "You rule!" "I loved it!" Quistis began to get angry, but tried to control it.  
  
"Okay…I'll just try and match up with hers…it's also a love story… One day Squall and Seifer were training but then they got bored and decided to skip it and have gay sex together. Then Zell saw the two having gay sex and they both had gay sex with him. Suddenly Irvine came over and said "he used to love women but now he doesn't for this story so could I have gay sex with all of you?" and they said okay and then all of a sudden Ms Trepe and Rinoa and Selphie saw them all having gay sex and they were angry so Rinoa cast a spell to make the girls grow dicks and they proceeded to have gay sex with the guys even though they weren't technically men to begin with…" one of the girls wrote.  
  
"YEAH, WOO!" "That was soooooo sweet!" "LOL!" "You rule!" "I loved it! Write more!" Suddenly, Quistis went berzerk and started whipping at students.  
  
"I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS! WHAT, WAS I GIVEN THE SPECIAL NEEDS CLASS OR SOMETHING? YOU PEOPLE REFUSE TO LEARN ANYTHING HERE! I CANNOT TAKE THIS ANYMORE! NONE OF YOU IS WILLING TO LEARN ANYTHING! I TRY TO HELP YOU GET BETTER AS WRITERS, AND THIS IS WHAT YOU COME UP WITH? IF I PUKED IN A FOUNTAIN PEN AND SENT IT TO THE MONKEY HOUSE I'D GET BETTER WRITING! NONE OF YOU DESERVE TO WRITE ABOUT ME AND MY FRIENDS! GO HOME! ALL OF YOU! I DON'T WANT TO SEE ANY OF YOU IN THIS CLASS AGAIN! YOU'VE LOST YOUR WRITING PRIVILEGES!" Quistis screamed before breaking down in tears. The class ran out of the room. Quistis began to sob. "I can't believe this…those people don't want to learn…they're more interested in what a couple of their friends think is good than learning how to get better…I can't reach them…Cid was right, I'm a failure…" Suddenly, the kid who was sitting at the back came over to Quistis. "Ms.Trepe, are you all right?" he asked.  
  
"*sniff*…you? Why didn't you run out of the class…what's your name again?" Quistis asked.  
  
"My name is Thomas. I've been trying to learn how to write better, but I can never seem to get better…" the boy replied.  
  
"I see…you actually wanted to learn?" Quistis asked.  
  
"Yes," Thomas replied. "Too many of these people just do what they said: say everything's really good in the hope that they return the favor. The class was nothing more than a circle jerk. I must admit, it was very addicting when I started in the class: write what I wanted to write and have people claim it was the gospel…."  
  
"But, why didn't you just stay with it?"  
  
"I just couldn't. People would make it a game: See what crap they could put out and still be treated like it was greatness. I wanted more than that. Eventually, I tried to make more intelligent pieces, and I just overshot all those idiots. Since then, no one gives me any credit for my work…" Thomas handed Quistis a paper, which Quistis read.  
  
"This…this is actually decent! It doesn't make me hate this job!" Quistis exclaimed.  
  
"Are you serious? This is second-rate. It still needs more work, but I agree it could be something good…" Thomas replied. "Either way, no one will say I'm good. It's the way of the class. If you come here trying to get better, either you end up in the circle jerk or you just drop it."  
  
"I see…so do teachers actually sanction how they did that?"  
  
"Nope, teachers usually quit very soon after. It doesn't matter who it is: great teachers, great writers, Gabe Kaplan, they always end up quitting soon after. I only wish that I could actually get better. I hate going out there, busting my ass to make the best possible stuff I could, and getting nowhere for all of it while people who couldn't write their way out of a paper bag are told they're the next great writer by other people who couldn't write their way out of a paper bag who want to be told they're the next great writer…"  
  
"Well, I can't say you're the next great writer, but at least you have the potential to be a great writer…"  
  
"That's good, because you have the potential to be a great teacher here…"  
  
"Not likely," Quistis said. "I've just lost the will to do it. Teaching is supposed to be from the heart. It can't be done…it's just a chore now. My heart's not in it anymore. I can't teach those people …I've just got to leave. At least at Garden, I know they actually want to learn…" Suddenly the principal started banging on the door yelling "TREPE! DID YOU WHIP YOUR STUDENTS? YOU'RE FIRED! GET OUT!"  
  
"…plus at least now I can go back home." Quistis started packing up her things. "Oh, I hope things turn out better for you…" Thomas said as he started to leave.  
  
"I hope so too. Hey, I got out of this place. Maybe there's room for another SeeD again…" Quistis said as she left the classroom. 


End file.
